This is condensed from a 2009 blog post where I interact online with New York Times media critic Virgina Heffernan by criticizing her more forgiving reading of YouTube's forms and possibilities.

Contextualization

"In her own haphazard fashion, during three-and-a-half minutes of television airtime, later aired to slack-jawed intakes of breath in May of this year, Susan Boyle fashioned a new kind of fame. She elicited a moment of pure, molten zeitgeist."[cit]

Home video (or corporate media of regular people) that highlights the pratfalls, gaffes, violence, and comedy of regular people has long been a staple of mainstream media and of interest to television scholars as well.

Dr. Strangelove reports in his blog that: "The data shows that Google has established a Microsoft-like monopoly in some key areas of the web. In video, Google has nearly doubled its market share to almost 80%. That is the legal definition of a monopoly, according to the federal courts, which have held that a firm achieves 'monopoly power' when it gains between 70% and 80% of a market."[cit]